


He Sways His Head From Side To Side With Movements Like A Snake

by greatpartyisntit



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Canon, Backstory, Blood, Blood and Injury, Exile, Implied/Referenced Incest, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Personal Canon, Post-Betrayal, Sibling Incest, idk what else does it need lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatpartyisntit/pseuds/greatpartyisntit
Summary: Though he doesn't do it intentionally.
Relationships: Macavity & Munkustrap (Cats), Macavity/Munkustrap (Cats)
Kudos: 11





	He Sways His Head From Side To Side With Movements Like A Snake

Years ago, Deuteronomy exiled his second son from the Jellicle Tribe. Macavity was left at the border of Jellicle territory known as the Junkyard - a great fortress revered by all - and watched by hardened eyes as he turned to forget where he came from. The solitary pair of green amongst the brown and blue bore into his back and pierced straight through his heart. He kept his head held high and stared straight ahead then, exuding unwavering confidence in his actions, though it was difficult to see where he was going through the overflow of tears in his golden eyes.

But a mentor awaited him. There were past secret meetings with this tom in a place dark and dreary, and dangerously close to his tribal grounds. It was chosen for privacy and convenience: time couldn’t be wasted if he needed to be home on the turn of a dime and not arouse suspicion. The thrill of potentially being discovered with this particular tom excited Macavity then and bolstered his enthusiasm for his training. This excitement was noted and carefully observed.

With his guidance, Macavity had learned how to fight - and fight well. But why? the Jellicle was initially asked. Why do you want to fight? As far as was understood, his future in his tribe wouldn’t have him seeing any battle. Macavity seemed uncomfortable then; this question was anticipated and yet, in the wealth of time he’d had to come up with an answer, he couldn’t rightly say. He’d been intentionally vague about his request. If he left mystery to it, he’d reasoned, perhaps the intrigue would influence this cat’s decision whether or not to see him. And it’d worked.

So why did he want to fight? “For protection,” he concluded to a dubious face.

“From what?”

“Whatever may happen.”

The cryptic statement was delivered with such finality that this notorious leader let it hang in the air. He watched Macavity struggle to remain so sure. This Jellicle had gumption; this Jellicle was bold, bordering on the fringes of arrogant. Jellicles were known to be a traditional lot. They were an old, proud tribe that was highly regarded and honored. Their congregation knew peace.

And a ripple in their calm waters stood before him, adamant to keep composure, true fear in his eyes that nearly blocked out a strange, unidentifiable intention known only to himself - he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

The inquiries continued: Why did he seek _him_ in particular? Contacting him could have been deadly. He had a lot of gall to reach out and thrum the strings on his tight web of allies and underlings. Even a sniffle of his ballsy request being found out by others could have ended badly for him.

Yes, he knew that, this leader was told. But it worked, didn’t it? There must’ve been a good reason why he entertained the idea at all.

The kingpin had to smile. Macavity was undeservedly cocky in a time like this; they may be on Jellicle grounds, but he was never in charge of the situation. His attitude added on to his curious admiration for the Jellicle, who was no ordinary Jellicle to begin with. As a child of Old Deuteronomy, his placement in the tribe and society beyond had already been decided and expected to be performed. So he was impressed that Macavity possessed the steel balls to brave the threat of blackmail and/or retaliation in order to not only seek him out in the first place, but then dared speak to him in a way that many would consider disrespectful.

Macavity could be a fine addition to his operations, he thought to himself, if he was worth his spit. He agreed to mentor him, and laid out a list of rules and expectations. The first rule was the most important, he said, and Macavity looked the most scared he’d seen him so far in their little chat. Good, he thought; he ought to be terrified for if this rule was broken, he would never face more dire consequences in his entire life.

Rule number one: Do not waste his time.

How very glad he was to learn he didn’t have to worry about that.

News traveled fast - terrible news, unforeseen, devastating, and so shameful that the Jellicle tribe may never recover from: Macavity had turned against his family.

It reached this particular authority long before it spread to other tribes. He immediately sent his personal guard to retrieve him, and when Macavity stood encircled by grave, scrutinizing leaders and their right-hand men from each sect of a tight-knit syndicate, he was judged on his actions - and loyalty.

A traitor, they called him. Being a traitor once could mean he’d be a traitor again. How could they trust him not to make that mistake? Was he aware of the enormous responsibility on his shoulders? This absolute leader vouches for him, the fallen son. Disappointing them, the council, would reflect very badly on someone they unwaveringly support and value. Did he have any idea what was at stake?

Yes, Macavity said, unable to control his trembling. Their eyes skinned him raw and ripped the flesh from his bones. They were pleased by his terror.

Would he betray them as he did his own tribe? they asked.

No, he replied.

Would he be prepared to face the grueling trials of starting at the very bottom, like a rat, a pathetic vermin that would be treated as such?

Yes, he replied.

Would he be willing to face his own tribe if he were seen by them, caught by them, attacked by them?

Yes, he replied.

Would he be willing to die for the syndicate, in duty and in punishment?

Yes, he replied.

Would he be willing to kill another innocent soul from a tribe?

Yes, he replied.

And what about murdering one of his former own?

There could be no pause in his answer. If he hesitated even a fraction of a second, their guarded trust would immediately fall and doom Macavity to the penalty so aptly decided.

Yes, he replied, without a single beat lost.

He became a rat, and disappeared from the outside world.

Years had flown by. Up the ladder he steadily went. In this time, his mentor had once been accused of favoritism - a claim that would be swiftly recanted. He climbed another rung. Macavity’s name became commonplace among the Outliers. Some said his name with due respect; others had a snarl at the mention. However, facts were facts, personal feelings aside: it was Macavity’s phenomenal dedication, hard work, loyalty, and obedience that gave him a place at the up-and-comers table.

The Collective worked well together.

Then he was found. A messenger came to him bearing a proposal that ran icicles through his veins. He took it straight to his superior. After considerable debate, they - he -decided to accept. On the day, at the right time, he waited. The master of all operations hung by, expertly out of sight, but not a breath out of mind of his lieutenant.

The insurmountable fear he had could be hid from others, but not from him - never from him. He understood why: this ginger cat had _much_ to fear today.

Macavity took audience with his older brother. They regarded each other with defensiveness, anger, fright, and remorse; emotions that were befitting of the first look upon each other in so many years. Munkustrap wanted to see for himself if the rumors were true.

“Rumors?” Macavity frowned. “What rumors?”

“Rumors that the Jellicle betrayer hadn’t disappeared after all,” Munkustrap responded in a way that wrung his sibling’s heart to jerky, though he wouldn’t have any idea it did. “Rumors that said you were amongst the Outliers.”

Now that he saw the truth for himself, he continued, he could forget all the work he’d tried to do to coax their father into giving one spitting thought into simply _seeing_ Macavity. All was for naught. Now he felt foolish - humiliated - to have tried at all.

“Why hadn’t you written me off already?” Macavity inquired. _Why are you really here?_ his golden eyes interrogated his brother’s deep green colors.

Though Munkustrap couldn’t bring himself to verbalize it, the answer was found in the sudden age and defeat in not only his eyes, but the way he held himself. The change was involuntary in the presence of his wayward kin, though he quickly realized his weakness escaped, and locked it back behind his fortress again. Macavity seethed; this was the precise, overarching reason why he’d rebelled in the first place. And he boiled, and rotted, and tore himself apart because that in his wake, his beloved brother paid the harsh price of his selfishness.

Macavity wished he’d let that fact alone discourage his rage back then.

They parted on tense terms: neither good or bad. When the tabby was gone, Macavity received congratulations on his decorum. Knowing intimately what Munkustrap meant to Macavity, he praised his student for the way he didn’t allow his feelings and past to regulate his behavior. No cracks were seen; no leaks to patch.

“Good work, Macavity,” he said. “This skews very highly in your favor.”

Time wore on. Another request came to the Outliers. Macavity received blessing to attend alone. We put all faith in you, they said. Don’t disappoint us.

That meeting had little civility. It escalated fast; over a decade of anguish, fury, and hate for each other and what they had been, done, and become, released a gruesome torrent that had to ride itself out. Everything finally came to a head, and there was no stopping it.

Macavity never wanted to fight his mate. At no time in his life did he want to think that one day he’d have to come to blows with the brother he loved so deeply and respected so much. He saw it in Munkustrap, too - this wasn’t what he wanted. The Jellicle heir had restraint unlike any other, but here, but now.. the ropes were cut.

In the span of time in which their lives had been without the other, they had gained and honed their skills. Natural strength had been improved. New methods were learned. Munkustrap’s brute force clashed with years of focused training. They both held back; these two bore too much beloved and plagued history to stand doing something that couldn’t be undone. That one offense a lifetime ago was enough. But in holding back their resentment grew, and grew, and boiled over.

It all boiled over.

He lay on his belly upon the ground. Blood steadily pooled under his cheek. His face throbbed and stung; his brother’s claws were to blame. The world rolled in his eyes like a fishing boat in an unforgiving storm. High pitched tinning was clear as day in his ears when all else was muffled by cotton shoved deep in his canals. He was defeated and disoriented. Macavity struggled to stand and collapsed in on himself, so he tried again. This was no different from the many times before, he dazedly told himself, when he’d been able to get to his feet in the wake of his head spinning and eyes blurring as they did now. These symptoms were standard for brawls. It was nothing new. It shouldn’t be anything new.

But it was. Familiar symptoms manifested far more gravely than they ought to. Something was wrong. As he crumpled once more, pressure and blood pounded his head and joined that note in his ears. Macavity dug his fingers into ground that tried to fling him off it. 

Munkustrap was in no good shape though exponentially better than his mate. No amount of anger and loss could keep him from trying to help him. He took Macavity’s arm and tried to pull him to his feet, and avoided a swing that couldn’t find him. Both arms were grasped then and he hauled Macavity up for a pathetic half second. The tom dropped onto Munkustrap’s chest like a sack of bricks and was immediately caught in his mate’s burly arms. _Stand up_ , Munkustrap demanded, roughly propping him up. In an instant Macavity bucked and the Jellicle almost let his body drop to the ground and barely hooked him in time. No matter how he tried, his brother was no more than a rag doll.

He left his beloved as close as he dared to the known border of Outlier territory. A powerful heartache plagued every marrow and muscle in his body; he wished he didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t supposed to be something he ever felt again. Munkustrap pressed a kiss to the face he mauled and bled in rivers, that held golden eyes he dreamt about and forever adored, now fluttering and rolling unnaturally in their sockets. Macavity’s sloppy reach for him was taken into his stable, bloody hands. He kissed his wayward mate and brother’s sullied black fingers and leaned away from his next feeble, clumsy attempt to grab his face.

“I’m sorry,” he told the exiled. “I’m so sorry.”

“Munkustrap,” he slurred, pawing at the air again. The murderer’s hands didn’t want to harm, he realized. Exercising caution all the same, Munkustrap bent over him and helped Macavity find, then hold, his face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. His very soul twisted in agony looking down upon his kin so wounded and conceivably dying beneath him. If Munkustrap later learned that he’d killed his brother, there would be a _damning_ chance that it would do him in, too.

Even though he held him in his palms, Macavity’s hands slipped and fumbled on his grey cheeks. Munkustrap’s concern climbed. He clutched Macavity’s wrists and stabilized his arms, and his chest nearly crushed itself as his thin fingers shakily stroked his silver hair. He kissed his bony inner wrist, and choked on a sob at the sound of his mate’s nearly incoherent garble.

‘I love you’ came as one mashed word, and Munkustrap heard it clear as day. Hot, salty tears stung his injured face and lit his right eye aflame. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t lose that eye. He kept it shut - it wouldn’t open properly anyway - and looked down through constantly renewing blurs at the love of his life.

“I love you too, kit,” his whisper crackled. “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Why did you have to do this?”

“B’cause I love you,” Macavity mumbled, releasing a sob from Munkustrap that couldn’t be restrained. “Munkustrap..”

“I have to go,” Munkustrap rasped. Outliers were charging straight for them. He couldn’t take the risks of wasting any more time. “I have to go, Mac,” he uttered again in a voice thick with grief and regret. Macavity’s hands paddled uselessly when he let go and lurched to his feet. All the strength in the world was siphoned to restrain him in not turning back to him, scooping him up, and running as hard and fast as he can to take Macavity _home_. He’ll never know how he didn’t buckle and give in to capture when he heard the weak, genuine plea of his name that he swore also begged him, _take me home; I’m scared, take me home._

 _I can’t today,_ _but I will,_ Munkustrap promised as he fled. _Just not today._

Both suffered nasty scars. Munkustrap’s eye didn’t fully recover, but at least he could still partially see. Macavity’s talon damaged his lid so badly that its swell and hang over his eye was irreparable. It left him a slat to look through and a large, vertical, puffy scar from forehead to cheek as a bonus souvenir. In addition to that, his nose would forever be out of line from the severity of which it was broken. He was damned lucky that his breathing wasn’t impacted. Other physical injuries healed without too much trouble. Those were the only ones that would heal at all.

Two scars slashed across and disfigured Macavity’s nose. A third cut a line from his jaw into his cheek. Wounds were bandaged and tended to. Though a few were critical, they were the least of his, and the syndicate’s, worries. The biggest problem never got any better. Munkustrap’s cement and iron fist had struck his head with great purpose behind it. For Macavity, the world now seesawed and spun, and made him sick to his stomach.

His superiors and medics watched his eyes dance as he tried to focus on anything. Closing them made him jerk in bed and snap them open again. “It’s like I’m falling,” Macavity described. When offered, each attempt to grab an item failed embarrassingly. The injury was grave. No one could say how long it’d take for him to recover.

Weeks went by. Macavity showed little improvement. When his physical wounds healed, he was helped to his feet. As a result, he violently teetered and succumbed to gravity at once. Two orderlies then assisted and kept him (mostly) erect. Things looked grim, and faith dwindled each day thereafter. The syndicate leader had to come to terms with the terrible truth and mourn the loss of one of his best lieutenants. This was a day he hoped would never come.

And because his pupil’s ego refused to be squashed, he ultimately didn’t have to grieve for him.

Macavity was approaching thirty-five when the apt description of him popped up in a conversation with his fellow trusted. “A snake,” the longtime general beside him laughed. “Can you believe that? I have to say, Mac: the way the they said it sounded like they were scared _shitless_.”

“That’s not a pretty bad way to put it,” another agreed, wagging her spoon at him. “That’s good. That’s intimidating. Hell, if I didn’t know you personally but knew of the shit you did,” she said as she scraped the rest of the yogurt from the jar, “I think that’d scare me, too.”

“Eh, it’s not bad,” countered a third with a shrug. “I dunno about _intimidating_ , but it’s, ehh.. yeah, kinda spooky, I guess. It’d be more fucked up if you saw him at night.”

Macavity flicked the ash from his cigarette to the floor. “Whatever does it for ‘em.”

He got a chuckle from the queen. “You’re so laid back, Macca,” she winked, and sucked the spoon clean. “Well _I_ think it’s a good play. Congrats.”

A shrug was given in the pause to take a drag from his smoke. “Works for me. It makes the whole topsy-turvy windsock impersonation sound pretty cool.”

Chuckles from his colleagues brought a smile to his face. “Yeah, let it be a mystery they never solve,” declared the general. “Hell knows _I’ll_ never figure you out.”

And no one else ever would, unless they were a silver tabby who kept vigil over a Junkyard that silently missed the son that rebelled; a tom who had, long ago, already cracked the mystery of Macavity - the betrayer and Outlier whose deadly presence haunted the night, and whose ominous silhouette swayed from side to side, to side, to side, to side, like a snake.


End file.
